


Ironically Ever After

by gatty



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-19
Updated: 2011-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-21 13:41:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gatty/pseuds/gatty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dave and Terezi hit Disneyworld, hit on each other and hit terminal velocity of <strike>abject failure</strike> cool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ironically Ever After

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://homesmut.livejournal.com/7440.html?thread=8916240#t8916240) over at the kink meme.
> 
> Hannah did some [beautiful arts](http://i53.tinypic.com/2hh189j.png). Aren't they stunning.

Once upon a time in the state of Florida a totally cool guy romanced an excellent lady and everything was pretty rad and groovy.

Okay, no, wait, the other thing.

It was awkward, and embarrassing and kind of perilous at points. But also totally un-ironically the best thing that ever happened.

 

Florida.

Orlando.

Disneyworld.

The Magic Kingdom.

A certain car in the Haunted Mansion.

 

 **Some Day My Prince Will Come And Fuck You Up**

 _-00:20:25_

 

“Dave, this is ridiculous. Am I supposed to believe that amateurish hologram is the enraged spirit of my ancestor returned to collect my viscous sloshing fear fluid in its ethereal horrorsacs?”

In the dim light of the car, he can just make out the way the corners of her mouth are twisting down in boredom. They are being trundled along, facing a plastic-y looking mirror into which an undeniably retro hologram of a green talking head is being projected. Her scarf has slipped down, and the spiked tip of her horns are reflected near the talking head’s nostrils.

“If you are five I have it on reliable authority that this is the most mind blowing fucking acid trip nightmare fuel on the market,” he says and leans back in the seat to better watch her face, light a pond slime colour from the hologram.

“I am not five.” She wriggles around the curved seat and leans round the edge of the car as far as she can go. “Who is this ‘reliable authority’? Is it John? If it’s John then it doesn’t count.”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, standing up in the car and holding onto the edge as she peers along the tracks.

“I can see the other cars.”

“Yes, we’re all on a magical fucking journey of self-discovery into the depths of human terror and shitty animatronics. Sit down.”  
Terezi turns to look at him, that needle sharp grin spreading across her face. He is suddenly aware, looking up at her from this angle all grey skin and unseeing red eyes and fucking ice-pick-nailed fingers clawing marks into the plastic of the seat back, of how alien she is.

“Don’t be silly, Dave. I have a far better idea.”

She pulls the scarf right down off her head and hops out of the car. Dave opens and shuts his mouth uselessly. He stands up, for moment he can see her - and then she is gone. A flash of red in the gloom. Before his brain has a chance to catch up with events and tell him that actually sometimes he resembles less of a cool guy and more of a fucking moronic incompetence peddler, he climbs out of the cars and onto the side of the tracks. Somehow, despite all his impressive powers of cognition, he didn’t see this clusterfuck approaching.

In the distance, a real human glass-shattering kiddy scream pierces the soundtrack coming over the speakers.

Well, shit.

 

 **I Know You I Walked With You Once Upon A Shitty Game That Destroyed My Universe**

 _-03:13:59_

 

In retrospect, letting Terezi pull out that fucking mangled coin to make decisions about which ride to do first was a move as smooth as the prickly ass of a lumberjack with a raging case of haemorrhoids. But then retrospect and his fuck buddy hindsight were both 20/20 motherfuckers and Dave was here in this moulded plastic warren of moth eaten animatronics and technicolour vomiting sticky children, with a blind troll licking the park map like it was her last grains of crack. Sometimes life just dealt you these rough blows and you do what any coolkid would and roll with it.  
Terezi takes one last, lingering sniff of the pastel frothing map then folds it up and tucks it in her bra. Dave pointedly looks somewhere over her shoulder as her hand slips under her shirt and out again. A corner pokes out above her collar, the rectangular outline clear against her tee shirt. When she first did this he had pointed out that he was the proud owner of a selection of pockets, but she had just arched a brow and said am I _embarrassing_ you Dave?

Well, he couldn’t lose to that challenge. In retaliation he had bought a giant plush hat in the shape of Nemo perching on his head like he was a fucking piece of coral.

In the line for Splash Mountain there are a good five kids wearing the same hat. Good. Mission accomplished. They have been snaking around the faked up tree roots of Brer Rabbit’s magical warren of heart warming horseshit for well over and hour and a half. At first she had been all over everything, all, _why is this mechanical striperoden talking to me Dave do they do this on earth Dave_ , but as the line did another mobius double fucking reach around mindfuck twist into another endless cavern of homely wisdom animals and waiting for fucking Godot, their conversation had slowed to a trickle. Even without Terezi’s heightened sense of smell, the oder of hot plastic and sweaty visitors in a confined space is starting to get to him. Terezi is leaned up against the ‘earth’ wall, arms folded across her chest.

“Is this your human ‘fun’, Dave? To trap yourself in an enclosed space for hours with screaming small humans?”

She looks relaxed, languid almost, except for the foot that is tapping rapidly against the floor, and the small, sharp movements of her head as she catches another scent.

“I am starting to think Earth might not have been our finest work.” She gives a considering look to a cheeky squirrel, nuts under both arms, glued to a root twining into the ceiling. “Or perhaps Tavros made this bit.”

Dave shrugs.

“It’s a formative childhood rite of passage, a treasured memory to last a fucking life time. Earth children are conditioned from birth by an array of talking animals and anatomically impossible people into social conventions that will govern their lives. The physical experience of an interactive version of the movies cements the rules as applying to real life. Fun has nothing to do with it. Don’t you have Troll Disney?”  
She wrinkles her nose and her foot stops tapping briefly. “Yes. But somehow I think you are overlooking the obvious differences between troll childhood social education and human.”

Dave hesitates, then slides his hands in his pockets and joins her leaning against the wall.

“Okay fair point. I suppose the troll version has a lot more stabbing.”

“Among other things. Troll disney classics such as A Motion Picture In Which a Troll Princess’s Position On The Hemospectrum Is Disguised; She Suffers The Degradation And Hardship Befitting A Low Born Servant Until A Noble Blue Blooded Prince Reveals Her True Purple Nature And Those Who Mistreated Her Are Summarily Culled, Dismembered And Roasted On Spits For Entertainment; Containing Two Sword Fights, Three Kisses, Fifteen Instances Of Injustice, Five Musical Numbers, Twenty Eight Puns Of Varying Quality, Multiple Instances of Slapstick Humour, One Moment Of Mild Innuendo And Seven Thousand Beheadings are invaluable in teaching grublings about their place on the hemospectrum and how to understand the quadrants.”

“Sounds like a party.”

“Oh it is quite the hootenanny.”

There is a rumbling in the line, and people begin to inch forward again.

“Oh look. We are allowed to advance just enough to maintain the illusion that this is not an enormous waste of time.”

She pushes her self of the wall, and takes one rather pointed step forward before the line stops moving and she parks up again.

“Cynic,” he accuses.

“Idealist,’ she grins, and pokes her tongue out.

 

 **I’ll Make A Man Out Of Your Dismembered Body Parts**

 _-03:01:33_

As they float round the corner into neon-pastel-acid-trip-fruit-loop-e-number-land, firmly ensconced in the plastic ass-moulded seats of their plastic ass-shitty log boat, Dave wonders if he can put together a case to sue for psychological trauma. The dark tunnel widens out into a grotto of fucking furry ass rumpus snuff movie hell. A cartoon forrest explodes out of the walls, all knotted tree trunks and dangling branches and synthetic grass dripping down over the banks in to the ‘river’. Every available surfaces is covered in bug eyed animals, frogs giving him the eye while opossums leer up at anthropomorphic mangey foxes who are _fucking snapping their heads back and forth on a mechanical loop singing and fucking staring right at him right through his sunglasses into his eyes and into his fucking soul._ Fuck he hates puppets.

Terezi is sitting in front of him and lapping it all up, head tipped back with a fucking down right beatific smile plastered all over her stupid untraumatized face. She takes in one deep, long breath drawn in through her nose, then another, and positively shudders, back concave and hips pressing against the inside of his knees. His panic derails for a moment as he gets caught up in looking at the little patch of skin revealed between her tee shirt and jeans. But then he makes the mistake of looking up briefly and aughgod it all comes rushing back, the cacophony of screeching voices and banjoes and chattering choirs of perky rodents waving their fucking mechanical paws right at him as though they’re desperate for a minute of his fucking attention but they know they have it anyway because he can’t stop fucking staring in horror as each new fresh batch of torment is served up to him like a fucking psychotic delicacy.

“Oh my god what is this land of ever loving ass terror?”

She tills her head towards him, movements sloppy like she’s drugged - which, he thinks, she basically is.

“I thought this was supposed to be a human childhood rite of passage?”

“Yes. Other people’s childhoods. I never bought into this mainstream bullshit. Of course now I am much wiser and handsomely cool than my five year old self, so I can ride this fucking log all the way to - _shit what was that I think feathers touched me_.”

She is cackling at him, and he scowls at the back of her head. Yeah. That felt much better. Fucking twisting his face into the ultimate expression of loathing and anger to this messed up puppet shit that stalks him his entire fucking life. He takes a jerky, shallow breath, and schools his face back into something resembling chillaxed. He is a cool guy. There is no way anyone as cool as him would get freaked out by a damn kiddie ride. He was pulling that shit as like some masterpiece of multilayered mille feuille irony. Okay, probably without the cake metaphor. As they swing round to face another visa of ungodly horror, he hits on the classic and beautifully effective stratagem that has allowed many of the greats of history to stoically bear their torments and live to save the fucking earth another day. He closes his eyes.

This gets him all the way to the drop, when he opens his eyes for a split second to see glorious blue sky and fucking perfect fluffy white clouds before there is the ominous sound of approaching mechanical jollity and they are firmly shut again.

He opens them properly when Terezi mashes his toes while climbing out of the log. She is weaving a little drunkenly so he grabs her elbow and steers her away from the gift shop and towards a mostly beige rest area.

“Dave,” she says, that stupid, dreamy smile still on her face. If you dreamed of sharks that is. “Dave, Dave.”

“What.”

“Dave.” She points her face at him, and the wind catches a strand of hair and moves it across her forehead. “That was wonderful.”

He looks at his knees, then back at her face.

“Oh.”

 

 **Just Can’t Wait To Be King Of This Shit Heap**

 _\- 03:58:06_

 

It is the colours that do it. They step into Main Street and she’s statue-like, knees locked and leaning heavily on her cain. A gaggle of kids dangling primary coloured refillable cups and rainbow striped souvenir bags and glittery balloons and polkadot ears walk past and she swivels to follow them, head cocked and nostrils flaring.

Of course it is the colours that do it. Dave Strider is loath to admit it, but his arsenal is limited when it comes to romancing hot alien chicks. Issue being, that plural is not entirely justified. It’s pretty much just one hot alien chick, and his romancing of aforementioned chick has pretty much been the most embarrassing thing to have ever crawled out of the primordial slime and grow legs.

So, he changed tac. In the three years Terezi had been on earth holed up in the crappy apartment, they had only left Texas a couple of times, mostly to visit John and his case of anthropomorphic herpes, Karkat. It was about time, in his opinion, that he showed her the full range of tacky shit this fine country could provide her with.

Now, the present, in Main Street, U.S. frikking A., she is rocking back on her heels, taking in it’s olde worlde charm, and looking suitably damn impressed. Okay, that’s a lie, she looks mildly engaged, which from her ice chill poker face, he’ll take as a victory to be recorded in the annals of the ages. The flame red scarf covering her head is tented slightly over her horns, but it’s not too obvious; just glancing you’d think it was folded funny. It’s so red, the grey of her skin is less noticeable. They’d worked out a good while ago, that anyone who saw her was likely to remember the bright red scarf first, before anything else. Some shit hot ninja skills right there.

“Hmm. So, in essence, this is a giant stage for a mass FLARP session?” she says. “Primitive, but an interesting concept.”

“You can’t FLARP - I mean LARP - I mean - oh for fucks sake I do not give a shit about these loser games - you cannot do that weird shit here. No costumes allowed in the park, except on little kids.”

She arches an eyebrow at him, and he shrugs his shoulders.

“Them’s the rules.”

“Humans seem awfully fond of unnecessarily denying yourselves pleasure.”

Dave shrugs again.

“I think you have hit a very large nail firmly on its head there, Terezi. We humans, we are all about the self-flagellation. Puritans, dude. They were serious business about temperance and abstinence and all that shit. Whoa, look at me go, laying some ill history schooling on you right there.”

She tugs at the scarf, fanning herself with the edge. It is a pleasant 95 and nudging 100% humidity. Dave’s sunglasses are slipping down his nose slick with sweat.

“What’s abstinence?”

Okay, who gives a shit what Mr Fahrenheit says, Dave will sign a piece of paper swearing to the muculent gods of tentacle porn that is is 200 degrees up in his face.

“It’s… ah - oh god - it’s… when - fuck - you don’t, um…”

He is ashamed to have ever proclaimed his mastery over the English language. Words are squirmy little shit weasels and he would personally like to serve up a platter of fuck you to whoever invented them.

He realises she is laughing at him a handful of syllables away from complete melt down. He is not happy.

“I know what abstinence is, dipshit,” she grins.

“Oh god why would you even do that.”

She regards him, as his sunglasses make their steady way down his nose. He shoves them back up.

“Because you smell delicious when you’re flustered.”

 

 **Your Stupidity Is A Tale As Old As Time**

 _\- 02:42:28_

 

“Dave you promised me cotton candy,” she whines. “Where is it. Are you lying to me. Do you want me to suffer.”

“Yeah totally,” Dave replies. He pushes the hair back off his sweaty forehead, hoping to all things holy he hasn’t just given himself a fail quiff. “It fits in perfectly with my hating you and spending no time with you and everything.”

He thinks she pouts. She does a thing with her mouth that looks displeased, disgruntled even, but he’s not sure petulant is in her vocabulary.

“Oh you have laid such a sick burn on me. How will I cope. How can I spend the rest of the cruel meaningless day with you.”

“Damn straight. Cry those green alien tears for me, baby.”

Without breaking step she punches him in the arm. “Oh wait. I forgot. You’re shit at burns and couldn’t set light to a gin soaked firework factory. Now where’s my damn cotton candy, Strider.”

His arm smarts from where she hit him, and he feels a sudden, brief flash of empathy for Karkat and his suffering before the sheer repulsiveness and unacceptable nature of that thought forces him to repress it deep under layers of other, more faceable trauma.

“Fine, quit bitching and sit down. I’ll bring you the finest selection of delicacies earth amusement park snack stalls have to offer.”

He leaves her at a table under a sun umbrella. She is wilting in the heat - even a born and bread Texan like Dave is suffering in the oppresive floridian humidity. He guessed it was only a matter of time before they put the whole damn show under a dome and ran air con through it.

At the stall he buys a slushie in every flavour, a bag of cotton candy, a bag of rainbow coloured candied popcorn and a large red lollipop in the shape of mickey’s head. He dumps his loot unceremoniously on their table and takes a seat as Terezi begins to pick through it.

“Here, cotton candy,” he says and tosses the last bag onto her lap.

She takes it, squishes it experimentally, then slits it open with a nail. After sniffing at the opening, and pulls a fluffy clump out with one finger, and touches it experimentally to her tongue. She recoils rapidly, holding the offending pink cloud out before her, an oval hardening to magenta lumps where her tongue has touched it.

“Are you actually telling me this is human cotton candy?” she asks.

“Erm. Yes?”

“… Humans are weird.” She touches her tongue to the cotton candy once more, this time eating a little. “But I think I like it.”

Dave watches her consume the wad she has spiked on one finger with little licks until she’s left with only the sticky melted centre, which she pops into her mouth like a pellet. He’s holding the raspberry lemonade slush, straw held thoughtfully to his mouth as he takes the occasional sip.

“So. You have left the question hanging there like a tragic damn outcast shunned for its severe case of facial leprosy adrift in a lonely sea of its own rotting flesh - if this is not what troll cotton candy is like, then what is it like? Please, please don’t say brains.”

She snickers, still licking the last stick bits off her black lips.

“Brains are delicious, but form the basis of a totally different dish I don’t think you’re ready for,” she says, moving on to the candied popcorn.

Her tongue is stained electric blue from the slushie she’s been slurping up enthusiastically, and he can see it behind her teeth as she talks.

“Troll cotton candy is a paste made out of the ground up bodies of cotton beetles coated in the crystalised blood of hoofbeasts,” explains Terezi, as she skewers a piece of popcorn on each nail.

They disappear between her lips in rapid succession, and she goes back to skewer a fresh batch.

“Right. Remind me never to try any food you offer me again.”

She snorts, and continues to hoover up the popcorn, using both hands.

Dave eyes the snacks, and considers the worth of trying to come between a troll and her immersive sensory experience.

“Hey. Snack hog. Does any one else get a look in on this?” he ventures, halfheartedly.

Still crunching away, she holds out one hand, a different colourd piece stuck on each nail, not looking up.

“Help yourself, coolkid.”

He is glad she’s so intent on her snack conquest, it means she didn’t notice the brief moment of blush on his cheeks as he takes her hand to pick off a piece of popcorn. He can see her better, in the shade of the umbrella. Her tongue snakes out to capture each piece as she raises it to her mouth, her teeth snicker-snack, and then the next one disappears down her gullet.

God, he thinks. What is wrong with me. He picks another piece of popcorn from her nail, feeling the sharp point it comes to, the cutting edge and spiky tip. He wouldn’t swap watching her desiccate confectionary for all the sick beats in the world.

Fucking pathetic, Strider.

 

 **Part Of Your Craptastic World Of Losers**

 _-02:37:14_

 

They are scooping up sticky scraps of plastic into the trash when Terezi’s scarf slips down, pooling around her neck. It’s maybe a minute tops before she realises and pulls it back up, but it’s enough. Dave sees a kid a few tables over from them disappear behind his mother’s shoulders, peeping over at them, and then there is a member of staff from the snack kiosk coming over.

“I’m sorry ma’am, but we don’t allow guests to wear costumes within the Disney World Resort complex,” she says, her face a well trained blend of stern authority and obsequious customer service. “I have to ask you to remove your costume, to to exit the park.”

Dave is scrolling through a list of possible moves, when Terezi speaks.

“This is not a costume,” she says. “This is my face. Do you have a problem with that?”

Okay, he thinks he might be able to work with that. Good thing they are the fucking world masters of poker face stare downs. The snack cart woman is clearly actually giving Terezi’s assertion a moment’s though, and Dave dives in with his best impression of outraged-citizen-aware-of-his-rights.

“How dare you! I have never been so offended in my life. How dare you humiliate my friend in this cruel and heinous manner. Just because she looks a little different. I would have expected more from the Happiest Place on Earth.”

He’s getting his rant on good and proper, letting a scowl cross his face in public for the first time in years. Terezi’s scarf is up now, hiding her horns, and she’s making a show of leaning on her cain and faking a confused expression as well as Dave is play-raging. The staff lady is starting too look uncomfortable - few people are starting to hang around nearby to see where this leads. One guy has his cell out clearly hoping something internet worthy is about to go down. The woman uneasily looks at the crowd forming. This is clearly not going the way her training told her to do it.

“But - but she’s wearing horns,” she stutters.

Dave’s face is stony in an instant, he can sense the crowds collective intake of breath at his change. “I don’t think that’s a very funny joke. I don’t think my father’s lawyer would like it either.”

The woman looks ready to turn tail and run and Dave is half way through chalking up one of his greatest victories to date when that damn kid suddenly finds an unwarranted reserve of courage and pops out from behind his mom’s shoulder pointing one pudgy finger at Terezi.

“He’s lying! Mom, I saw her. She’s got big red pointy horns and everything,” the kid squawks, almost bouncing up and down in his eagerness to tattle. “He’s lying. Lies are bad.”

Dave takes small solace in the fact that this kid will clearly have a shitty time at school. Right now he has to weigh up his options, with a growing crowd and suddenly confident staff member. Once again, Terezi cruises right past his thought process, coming round in a victory lap before he’s off the starting block. Her hand closes round his, and she hisses to him under her breath.

“Strider. Can I suggest the masterly plan of running very fast?” she says, almost sweetly.

“Yes. Yes you can.”

She starts forward, hand still clamped around his, and drags him with her. The crowd parts and they trip the light fandango and turn cartwheels right out of that unrad situation. For a short chick, she’s got running legs on her, and they’re making excellent time across Liberty Square. Dave glances back and sees the staff member running after them halfheartedly, walkie-talkie at her mouth. They plough headlong into the milling visitors, bobbing and weaving like the evasions pros they are. Wheeling round a corner, they slow for a second, and Dave has a truly excellent and unquestionably awesome idea.

“Not to rain on this exciting parade or anything, but I think this is incredibly stupid,” Terezi says as he gives her a leg up over a wall clearly marked stay the fuck out Joe Public.

“Can you just shut up and let my genius shine through, Pyrope?” he grumbles.

The wall is higher than he thought, and it’s a worrying couple of seconds before he manages to scramble over, half yanking her off her perch as she tries to lever him up. They tumble down the other side into a word of backstage detritus. Bits of lighting rig are propped up against broken seats and and plastic palm trees. When they have to practically dive headfirst into a stack of disembodied legs to avoid a passing member of crew, Dave starts to think Terezi might have a point, but a pit of plastic ass is not about to put him off. A few more close encounters and they’re in, sliding in through a back door propped open with a bucket. Three years on earth, and Terezi is pretty immune to the omnipresence of buckets in human life and only makes the smallest of noises as they step over it.

In turns out to be The Enchanted Fucking Tiki Crapfactory (TM Dave Strider). A new audience is being herded in, and it’s easy enough to slip in and take a seat. Miraculous as it maybe, Dave’s plan might just have worked. Apart from the bit where they are forced to endure a fantastical revue extravaganza to delight all fucking ages with its magical little touches and delightful surprises. Dave passes the park guide back to Terezi in disgust. It is warm from being kept next to her skin and he does an fucking A++ job of not thinking about that one tiny bit.

Three minutes later and the Tiki Poles are singing with a flower chorus accompaniment and Dave’s foot is tapping along. Terezi elbows him, sly grin tilted towards him.

“Shh, Pyrope. My razor sharp irony allows me to enjoy this musical display while remaining cool. It is something you would know nothing about with your limited grasp of the art.”

She cackles, and her leg falls to press against his. He stops breathing for a good thirty seconds, and her leg is still there, a hot line along his.

Like he said. Poker face world champion. Like that would get to him.

 

 **A Dream Is A Wish That Will Never Come True Because The Universe Hates You**

 _-01:54:37_

 

When he notices her weaving drunkenly again, they agree it is probably time to move onto something a little more sedate and pastel. Her nose roves across the map, and she points to number 31, the tea cup ride. They have to make a couple hasty detours to avoid the parade (Dave doesn’t even want to start thinking about what fresh hell that would be) and even then she’s still not doing a bang up job of straight lines. He takes her arm at one point to steady her - she hooks her hand over his forearm for balance and she doesn’t let go. In fantasy land they worm through the army of kids and harassed parents to get in line. As they shuffle past the first wait time market, she tilts her head up towards him. Her hand is still hooked over his arm, and he can feel all her boney fingers in clear definition.

“Strider,” she says firmly.

He glances down at her, cool as polytunnel full of cucumbers.

“Pyrope.”

Her fingers dig into his arm a second, then relax. “I just wanted to say… thank you. For bringing me here.”

He shrugs. “Whatever. I just thought you might like it.”

That shark grins splits her face again. “Ohhh it is _excellent_. Humans are so decadent. You just slop around all these colours - “ she shakes her head, trying to keep on topic. “What I mean is - it is noble of you, you know, to compromise your coolkid rep to bring me here.”

“I am insulted you think I can’t pull this level of irony off,” he deadpans. “Consider our friendship rescinded.”

“You know what, Strider. You are clearly bluffing. Your sparkly pink heart obviously lives to be a princess.”

“Yeah you got it, it’s my dearest childhood wish to live with my pet unicorn in a fucking crystal turreted castle spinning the innocent dreams of little children into a mantle of purity and light and frolic around the forrest bestowing wishes on orphans. That is my life’s motivation Pyrope, how can you see so clearly into my heart.”

“It’s blind chick magic. I can smell your soul. It smells like frosting.”

Dave is preparing the smoothest of comebacks when they reach the front of the line and are ushered into their teacup. They begin to spin and Terezi’s expression slackens with pleasure again.

“Ohhh. It’s like a kaleidoscope in my nose.”

The ride speeds up and centrifugal force is suddenly all up in their business and suggesting they might like to get a good fucking deal closer. Dave braces his legs against the floor of the teacup and endeavours to stay in his own personal space bubble. His good intentions are smashed well and good when Terezi lands in a cackling pile in his lap. Her head is all pressed up against his shoulder, glasses frames jabbing into him and sharp nails finding purchase on his chest through the thin material of his tee shirt. His heart is hammering, and he knows she has to be able to feel it, because he can feel the rise and fall of her chest as she breaths. It occurs to him that if this were one of John’s shitty movies, that loser would be hunched forward waiting for the sappy magical one true love kiss to happen, stupid baby blues all prepped and ready to well up and spill totally unironic tears all over his ridiculous face.

Good thing Dave Strider was one hundred times too cool to indulge in that sort of sentimental bullsh -

Terezi is mashing her face into his in what he hopes is just total incompetence rather that some sort of horrific troll version of kissing. Turns out he is totally down with whatever version they’re going for, as he’s kissing her back, worryingly earnest. She wraps her arms around his neck to hang on limpet like as they’re hurled around at ever increasing speed. She is pressing her tongue against his lips and it suddenly occurs to him that it was barely five minutes ago he was thinking how she was effectively drunk on colours making this pretty much exactly like macking on a drunk chick and apparently he’s not that guy? Because he’s prying her off him, wedging his hands under her armpits to lever her away.

“Let’s just,” he mumbles, “wait till you’re sober and see if you are still jonesing for Strider sugar, which of course you will be because I am a fucking fine catch, but … sober. Okay?”

The ride is slowing down, and it’s easier to open a gap between them. The technicolour scenery starts to become solid again, outlines growing clear. Her expression is unreadable - but when the fuck isn’t it.

“I cannot believe you just said that,” she says. “I don’t know if that makes you the coolest guy or the most pathetic.”

And then she’s fucking laughing at him, for like, the billionth time this trip and he’s starting to really doubt his right to claim any coolkid status at all. They’re on the last few rotations, and he leans forward, burying his face in his hands.

“Augh. I know. Just tell everyone I got to second base okay?”

Dave slinks out the exit with Terezi’s damn cackling still in his ears.

 

 **Part Of Your Craptastic World of Losers**

 _-00:23:47_

 

He doesn’t know how they ended up in the Haunted Mansion. Given their track record so far, it is definitely asking for trouble. Though with all the sombre tones and monochrome, Terezi is back to her spiky, acidic self. She regards with undisguised contempt the animatronic display telling the gathered visitors of the tragic yet spine chilling legend of some bullshit Dave is far too cool to pay attention to.

“What is this even supposed to be,” she complains as they are loaded into their Doom Buggy. “No wonder you guys sucked at the game if this is all the practice you got of being scared.”

Yeah, he really should have seen this shit coming, when she hops out of the car like it’s a fucking park and ride and skips off evil fairy incarnate come to traumatise any lucky kid she can find, and actually, he thinks, that is pretty much exactly what she is. And of course he hops straight out after her - to do what precisely he has no fucking clue. It is so fucking unironically pathetic how willing he is to let this girl get him in asstons of trouble. But then again he’s known that since the first godforsaken time she decided to unleash one of her plans on his sorry ass.

He catches up to her about five cars along, where she’s leering down, all fifteen fucking thousand teeth on display, into a car load of preteens, all of whom are having a shitfit of terror. He figures it’s way to late to save this clusterfuck from flying right off the edge of the excusability cliff, so he rolls up behind the kids and leans over with a well timed boo. The kids are up and out of their car in a second flat pelting hell to leather to the glowing green blob of the fire exit. Then shit - some little fucker’s yanked the fire alarm and fucking pandemonium is going down in there.

Emergency lighting is flickering on all down the tracks, illuminating the shapes of two security guards closing in on them. Cool, he thinks. Going out in blaze of glory. He can totally get behind that. He grabs Terezi’s hand, and jerks his head towards the cursed ballroom where projected figures are still waltzing across the dirty fake parquet floor. There are still cars further back as yet unaware of events.

“Have you ever seen the movie Bonnie and Clyde? For once I think the troll and human version are probably the same.”

The way she grins at him says yes she damn well has.

“I like the way you think, Strider.”

 

 _-00:00:00_

“… life time ban from all parks operated by the Disney franchise.”

Okay, so yeah. It had all pretty much worked out like he expected. Dave had once again been the Knight of Time when he saw his future in the shape of a burly security guard and a close acquaintance with the floor. The woman from the snack kiosk had somehow materialised when they were being dragged to the site office and legal threats were flying thick and fast. All in all they were probably luck to get off with just a ban.

Out on their asses less than five hours after passing through the magic fucking portals into the happiest place on earth, Dave felt it was a day well spent.

 

 **A Whole New World. Hell Fucking Yeah.**

 _00:14:21_

 

They are sitting on the hood of Dave’s car, drinking Big Gulps and cooking their asses on the sunbaked metal. Behind them Cinderella Castle looms up over the maximum security wall that surrounds the park complex. She’s sobered up now, away from the amphetamine over stimulation of the park. The sun is whiting everything out; even behind Dave’s shades, the world is reduced to monochrome blocks. Terezi takes a long slurp, rattling the ice around with her straw, then lets out a satisfied belch.

“… classy, Pyrope,” says Dave, eyeing her over the rim of his plastic cup.

“Always, Strider. I am the pinnacle of class and elegance. Are you insinuating I’m not.”

“Not at all.” He sucks up the last of his coke and joins her in this belching party.

She tosses the empty cup into a trash can a good ten feet away with perfect aim, then reaches up stretching her arms, her joints cracking away like bubblewrap. He doesn’t try and copy her, keeping his cup in his hand. She settles back, wedged up on her arms.

“Welp. That was fun,” she says, licking the last drops of Sprite off her lips. “And it took you long enough.”

“What? Have you been hiding your burning need to ride a nightmare log flume since you got dumped on earth?”

Even with those unseeing red eyes and angular shades he can tell she’s giving him a withering look only reserved for the most cretinous of shit for brains mouth breathers who cross her path. He makes a fucking manly effort not to apologise for breathing the same air as her.

“Nope,” she says enunciating carefully. “Coolkid.”

Under the turrets of the fairytale castle, she leans over and kisses him, purposefully, and careful to keep her teeth away from his chapped lips.

She pulls back enough to murmur, “I said: it took you long enough.”

He has about enough thinking power left in his brain to say something stupid and monosyllabic like, “ohh,” in reply, then her lips are on his again and it doesn’t really matter any more.

And they lived happily ever after until Dave realised his car keys had fallen out of his pocket on Splash Mountain.

 

THE END.


End file.
